


Timing

by mousewriter



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Barely Canon Compliant, M/M, Time Travel, dont let the major character death tag put you off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 10:31:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1685126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousewriter/pseuds/mousewriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time is circular. Sherlock calls it circular because that sounds more academic. <br/>Really it’s a squiggly line masquerading as a circle. Its goes round and round and touches and goes on points that are similar and common. Sherlock is always high in the bathroom. John gets shot in the left shoulder. Sherlock falls and returns. John makes the first move. <br/>Other moments don’t matter as much. </p><p> </p><p>Sherlock has a peculiar way of traveling through time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Timing

Sherlock is eighteen and high off his ass the first time it happens. He thinks the fuzzy feeling in his fingers is part of the high, he thinks the fuzzy feeling on his spine is part of the high.

He thinks he’s hallucinating when he’s suddenly in a hospital bed and an old man is holding his hand, pleading with him.

And the old man is yelling at him “Go back! You have to go back!” The old man is crying. “Sherlock! You have to go back!”

Sherlock can’t question how this man knows his name before he’s back in his bathroom, breathing heavily and thinking _oh god I’ve overdosed._ He passes out.

Sherlock wakes who knows when to pounding on the door. He’s glad he’s not dead… well; he’s supposed to be glad, isn’t he?

It was a bad trip is all, hallucinations and fuzziness…

It isn’t until he spots an IV bag under the sink that he realizes it was all _real._

The pounding on the door doesn’t stop, and when he opens it there’s no one there.

_(Forty three years in the future John Watson is pushed to the side as a crowd of doctors and nurses scream at one another to get Sherlock stable again, hooking him up to the machines he left behind when he was pulled back in time. His IV has gone missing.)_

Sherlock stands in his bathroom with the saline in his hand. _His name is on it_. Sherlock Holmes. _61_.

As impossible as Sherlock tells himself it is, he’s just traveled in time. No, he’s switched places with his future self. That much he is correct, but he gets it wrong when he thinks it’s the cocaine that caused it. It’s the last day he ever uses, and he submits to Mycroft’s insistence on rehab.

 

It happens again when he is nineteen. He’s reading the fourth chapter of a book when he finds himself sitting in a strange flat with horrid wallpaper, and then he is back in his room, realizing he’s left his book in the future.

_(Sherlock is thirty four and sorting through his mind palace when he feels himself pulled back in time. He’s back in his childhood bedroom and he doesn’t have time to determine the date before he’s pulled back to his time. The book he lost long ago is on the floor, and he’s happy to pick it back up where he left off._

_John bounds up the stairs muttering about the chip and pin machines. Sherlock gives him his credit card.)_

 

 

Sherlock is twenty when he can control his time jumps.

 

 

Sherlock is thirty four. Yesterday he found a flat on Baker Street, he likes the wallpaper.  

John Watson walks into the lab at Bart’s. There’s something familiar about him. He’s trapped in a one room one window bedsit that only catches sunlight for a few hours a day. He can see that in the fading on the left side of Johns clothes, the closet door is open to the window, maybe there isn’t a door at all. Mike doesn’t need to tell Sherlock that this man is looking for a flatmate.

It isn’t until later, when John kills the cabbie and saves Sherlock’s life that he remembers the old man who knew his name. Sherlock can see it in the shape of John’s brow and the set of his shoulders and the color of his eyes.

Sherlock wants to keep him around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sherlock times it perfectly.

Six inches from the ground and the familiar tingling crawls from his toes and his fingertips to the nape of his neck and down his spine and he’s not staring down concrete and death anymore but a soft bed and the muted glow of sunrise.

_(Two years and twenty three days in the future Sherlock feels the familiar tingling crawl from his spine to his fingertips and he’s not being gently pushed to the pillows in front of him but falling onto concrete, cold, wet, and very naked.)_

John is behind him on the bed and he’s saying “god, you’re beautiful.” But then he’s yelling “What the hell?” Sherlock turns and sees that John is very much naked and holding his erection as if he were about to—

“Why are you naked?”

“Why are you clothed?”

_(Sherlock is naked on the pavement and he knows what day this is. He forgot he forgot he forgot.)_

“What year is this?”

“Saturday March 15th, 2014, er... nine oh four in the morning.”

Sherlock stills where he had been searching for paper. John gives him the notepad and pen on the nightstand.

“You’ve done this before.”

“Yeah.”

“You know about me.”

John nods. Sherlock writes down the day that he came from and the time on his wristwatch, then the date John gave him underneath. He tears the paper from the pad and slips it into his pocket.

“So we…” Sherlock looks pointedly at the bed. “In the future.”

“Don’t tell past me. _I_ made the first move and I’d like to keep it that way.”

_(Sherlock rises into a sitting position and puts his hands out to stop one of his homeless network from splashing blood on him. “Wait, wait until I’m clothed.” The man—Fred, maybe?—looks beyond perplexed but he holds the pint of blood steady. John hasn’t come around the building yet when Sherlock feels it in his fingers and toes.)_

Sherlock is pulled back through time onto cold pavement. He immediately lays down and puts the squash ball under his armpit as Frank splashes him with blood.

He stares forward with unseeing eyes as John rushes over. John says “Let me through.” John sobs “Friend.”

He lets medics carry him out on a stretcher. He thinks maybe he might just come back one day.

_(“Where did you just come from then.” John said as he pulls Sherlock forward by his hips. “Nowhere important.” Sherlock replies. John peppers kisses down his collarbone and Sherlock let the warmth of the morning replace the biting cold of the pavement.)_

 

 

Sherlock timed it perfectly.

The one variable he wasn’t sure of was if he maintained inertia when he jumps through time. The speed at which he fell would kill him if he landed on concrete, but what if he appeared in the future somewhere still falling at the same speed? Luckily he fell onto a bed in the future, so he wouldn’t have died if he _had_ maintained speed. Sherlock would finally know two years in the future when he falls buck naked two years into the past that he doesn’t hold the same speed. It’s as if he’s simply picked up and dropped into another time.

The one variable he is _always_ unsure of is what date in the future he’s travelling to. He knows that he can only travel to the future, and the only time he can travel to the past is when he is coming back _from_ the future. Even then he can never go back to the exact time he came from, it’s always a minute or two after.

So, six inches from death he travels in time, determines the _when_ , writes it down, and travels back. He commits the dates to a room in his mind palace and makes sure that on the day he is pulled _back_ into time by his past self he knows exactly what to do.

On this occasion, save his own life by falling six inches.

Sherlock has seen his own future first hand and he can’t mess it up. He _wants_ this. Sherlock deletes the date from his brain, but he keeps the image of John, golden in morning light and hair stuck up from sleep.

 

_(John is kissing him with languid strokes of his tongue and Sherlock is forgetting the cold concrete. John lifts up on his forearms and bites his lip._

_“What.” Sherlock asks._

_“You-from-the-past saw me naked.”_

_“Should I be jealous?” Sherlock says with a coy smile._

_“You knew about us before we were an ‘us’.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“How long.”_

_“Since 2012.”_

_“When you fell.”_

_“When I fell.”_

_John dips down to kiss Sherlock’s throat. “How come you never told me you knew?”_

_“You wanted to make the first move, remember? You should remember it was only five minutes ago for you.”_

_John swatted his hip. “I meant after we got together.”_

_Sherlock shrugs, then smiles and flips them over. “Before I jumped,” He kisses John solidly on the mouth. “I hadn’t planned on coming back. And then I came here,” he mouths at Johns jaw line. “And I saw you. I was dead for a year after that and while I was… you know.” John ghosts a hand over the scars on Sherlock’s back and nods. “Knowing what I could have when I came back is what got me through it all.” He kisses John again. “Can we have sex now?” He asks petulantly._

_“Yeah.” John nods and flips them back again.)_

 

Time is circular, and linear, sporadic.  Time never stops and Sherlock can’t either.                

Sherlock can’t remember where his time began but he thinks it was in a bathroom while he was high.

 

 

It’s 2013. Sherlock stands outside of a pub chain-smoking and John sits inside of that pub, having drinks with his army mates and looking happier than he had been in the past year.

Sherlock wonders if now is the time to come back. He doesn’t know how any of this works and it’s just so frustrating. If he goes into the future and asks future John when he’s supposed to come back would that screw up the timeline, would John prefer if he came back sooner or later? If Sherlock messes anything up he doesn’t know how to fix it, what use is it to only be able to travel into the future? How could he fix the past if he—

Sherlock can’t lose John. He can’t mess this up, but he doesn’t know how to _not_ mess it up.

Sherlock is here _now_ , that must mean something, right?

He takes a deep breath and stubs out his cigarette. John won’t like that he’s smoking again.

He pushes the doors of the pub expecting them to open but they don’t. It’s a damn pull to open door and Sherlock hates how much the slight misstep grates on his nerves.

It’s warm in the pub and cold outside, and the patrons have been scowling at the door all night every time it opens and lets in cold air. So when Sherlock enters all eyes are on him for half a second and only one pair does a double take.

John looks like he’s about to throw up. Like he’s seen a ghost. Like he’s been punched in the gut.

Sherlock still doesn’t know if he’s made a mistake or not.

But he knows that this is the man who will love him one day, make love to him one day, the man who will hold his hand while he’s lying in a hospital bed when they’re both old. So he squares his shoulders and lets John punch him, lets him grab his shirt and yell at him. Lets John drag him out of the pub and demand an explanation.

John tells him he never wants to see him again. Sherlock lets him walk away, no matter how much he wants to grab him back, hold him, kiss him. John in the future told Sherlock of the past that _he_ made the first move and he wants to keep it that way. Sherlock will honor that, he just hopes that that future hasn’t been lost.

 

John comes to him the next day. He found out where Sherlock is staying—from Mycroft, probably. He knocks and hears the lock click open and Sherlock braces himself for more yelling but John surprises him, he always surprises him. John crowds in close and holds Sherlock’s chin and kisses him. He pulls him down by his shoulders and kisses him harder. Sherlock doesn’t know what to do with his hands but they find their way to John’s waist and John doesn’t seem to mind at all. 

When they stop they’re both breathless. John has his head on Sherlock’s chest and he says “Come home.”

 

 

Later, when John is satisfied that the reason _why_ Sherlock jumped is simply “For you, John.” John wants to know _how_.

And this is when Sherlock trades places with a forty three year old Sherlock. Older Sherlock’s got safety goggles on and he complains that he was in the middle of an experiment. Then he realizes that this is the day that his past self spilled the beans, and smiles. Suddenly it’s younger Sherlock back in his chair with a piece of paper in his hand.

John doesn’t know what to say at first. Sherlock shows him the paper. There are two dates on it, the first one being the current date and the second one being where Sherlock just traveled to. Under that Sherlock wrote ‘told john about me’.

“Every time I do this, I make a note of it. That way future me knows when to expect to be pulled back. Before I hit the pavement I traded places with my 2014 self. I fell the remaining distance without the speed and my future self fell just a couple of inches. Then I switched back.”

“So, in a year from now you’re going to do it… again?”

Sherlock nodded. He doesn’t mention that they’ll both be naked and about to enjoy lazy morning sex.

“That’s… amazing.”

That night John holds Sherlock close and kisses him through orgasm. He whispers things like ‘beautiful’ and ‘mad’ and ‘brilliant’. 

Sherlock is glad with his timing.

 

 

Sherlock gets kicked off a case for being insensitive to a witness. He sulks about it and burns a hole through the table out of boredom. John yells about it (frustrated by the clinic work and his sister and taking it out—justifiably—on Sherlock). Sherlock sighs and time jumps.

“What day is it?” He asks John without much care. He doesn’t notice that John is stripping out of a tux and that they’re in a hotel suite. He doesn’t notice the ring on John’s finger.

“Seriously?”

“What?”

John steps back and holds his arms out. “What do you think?”

Sherlock takes it all in. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” John sounds mad but he’s smiling. “January 29th 2014, ten oh two p.m. You could have warned me, you know.”

“We get married?”

_(In the past John stops mid rant to realize that Sherlock has a tux on—half on really._

_“You did not seriously time travel to escape an argument.”_

_“What are we arguing about?”_

_“Acid hole in the table.”_

_“Ah, I remember this fight. We end up fucking against the mantle.” Sherlock points to the fireplace. “I topped, it was great.”_

_Johns not sure what to say so he asks “Why are you wearing a tux?”_

_“You’ll find out.”)_

John nods. “We get married. What time did you come from anyway?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer as he’s being pulled back in time.

_(Sherlock returns to John in his tux and smiles at him “It’s the table fight.”_

_John smiles. “The table fight.”)_

Sherlock reappears back in his pajamas and dressing gown and the dopiest smile on his face. He bounds up and over to John and kisses him solidly on the mouth.

“I love you.”

“What?”

Sherlock chases the question back into John’s mouth. He pulls John to him hips-to-hips and mouths down his neck.

“I. Love. You.” Sherlock punctuates each word with a kiss. He reclaims John’s mouth and leaves no room for doubt that what he’s saying isn’t true. He pulls off to breathe and rests his forehead against Johns, they breathe the same air. John nods and opens his eyes. “I love you.” He says back.

“Marry me.”

“What?”

“Tuxedos, John.”

John’s not sure what he means at first but then he realizes.“Oh.” John smiles. “I guess that settles that.” Sherlock dives in for more kissing.

He mumbles against Sherlock’s lips. “How did I look in a tux?”

“Breathtaking.”

Sherlock pulls him toward the couch, but John shakes his head. “Mantle.”

Sherlock looks at him quizzically. “Trust me.” John says. He starts unbuttoning his shirt. “Go get lube.” Sherlock dashes down the hall, shedding his own shirt, and returns in just his pants to a completely naked John. He crowds in for a kiss and John leans back to the mantle, pushing down the remainder of Sherlock clothes.

Soon enough John is seated on Sherlock’s cock, braced against the mantle with his arms around Sherlock’s shoulders and his lips on the younger mans neck.

 

 

Old age claims Sherlock more than it does John. John is built to grow old, he is sturdy and warm and Sherlock loves that about him.

What he hates is that John has to watch him go first.

He remembers being eighteen and coked out and John, John old and weathered and yelling at him to go back, go back. He can’t tell John this. It wouldn’t do any good anyway, there’s nothing he can do.

Sherlock is sixty one and confined to his hospital bed. John knows how much that kills him. All that energy, laid waste by decay. Any moment now, any moment now.

Sherlock is sleeping. John sits bedside with Sherlock’s hand in his.

Sherlock is eighteen and high and where John’s Sherlock is supposed to be.

_(Sherlock is old and scared and has enough wits about himself to take out his IV and leave it behind. He can’t breathe properly and his chest hurts and this time around seems longer, doesn’t it?)_

 “Sherlock! You have to go back!”

Sherlock closes lids over blown pupils and _goes_ and old, dying Sherlock is back, and John can’t sigh in relief because the doctors can’t save him this time.

_(“John?” He calls out but he knows he won’t get an answer. He hears someone say his name but he doesn’t recognize the voice. He is pulled back before he can say anything.)_

 

 

 

John doesn’t know what the feeling in his fingertips is. It feels like pins and needles and plunging his hands in cotton, and his spine feels like it too.

He’s not in the hospital room anymore, but an unremarkable hallway in front of an unremarkable door. He feels different. He hears thrashing inside, and the door handle is locked. His hand isn’t wrinkled.

( _Forty three years in the future the space John had inhabited is empty. No one takes his place._

_Sherlock Holmes is pronounced dead eight minutes after mid day. The sun is at its highest in the sky but in reality it’s a little to the left of where its supposed to be.)_

“John?” A shaky, old voice called from within the room. There’s a cough.

“Sherlock?” It can’t be, can it? The door won’t budge, John feels useless. He pounds on the door until his hands are bruised and his voice is hoarse and tears sting his eyes.

No one answers. He falls against the door in exhaustion and sits against it.

He dozes, but never rests.

He hears moaning on the other side. Like Sherlock used to do in his sleep when he was dreaming. So he pounds on the door again and hopes that this time he will be answered.

Sherlock unlocks the door and pulls it open. He is young, so young.

“John?”

John kisses him, god how he kisses him.  He catches his reflection in the vanity mirror and he is young but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care because Sherlock is right there and alive and so, so young.

“You know who I am?”

Sherlock nods. “I remember… I was forty three when you were thirty seven, and eighteen when you were sixty five… that doesn’t make sense, we grew _old_ together…how?”

“I don’t know.” John shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

He kisses Sherlock again and he thinks _, this time around_ …

 

 

 

It’s the day Sherlock forgot, John wakes him with a lazy morning mouth around his lazy morning erection and Sherlock grabs John’s hand with his own, feels the wedding band there. This time around they’ve been married since their twenties. This time around Sherlock remembers that he’s supposed to be dressed and ready to be pulled back in time.

“It's gone nine, John.”

John sighs. “Fine. I’ll just bugger younger you when he gets here.”

“Like you could achieve orgasm in the two minute time frame.”

“Do you remember what you were like at that age? One touch and you were off.”

“I’m wounded John.” Sherlock pulls on his pants. “See you on the other side.” He gives him a light kiss goodbye.

Younger Sherlock appears face down on the floor.

“Alright there?” John asks him.

“No.” Sherlock rolls over and covers his face with his hands. “I hate making you watch me die.”

“I know it’s not real.”

“Still.” Sherlock removes his hands and looks up at John. “That’s a new scar.” He points to John’s collarbone.

“Criminals. What are ya’ gonna do.”

“Tell me how it happened so I can make sure it doesn’t.”

“Certainly not, the apology sex was amazing.”

Sherlock smiles and seconds later he was thirty six again. He takes in his position on the floor.

“I take it you didn’t have sex?” He rises to his knees.

“Nope.” John takes his hand and brings him back to bed.

 

 

Time is circular. Sherlock calls it circular because that sounds more academic.

Really it’s a squiggly line masquerading as a circle. Its goes round and round and touches and goes on points that are similar and common. Sherlock is always high in the bathroom. John gets shot in the left shoulder. Sherlock falls and returns. John makes the first move.

Other moments don’t matter as much.

Sherlock dies with John nearby. In hospital, an alley, their bedroom, a bank vault. The location changes and John holds his hand. Sherlock is eighteen and high for a moment, John varies.

Wherever Sherlock goes John follows, always back to the start.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i woke up to an empty house and i was so so so starved of entertainment and there was this idea in my head- what if sherlock could time travel. granted its a nearly useless method of time travel but anyway.... i wrote this in like four hours and left it sitting on my computer for weeks and now im posting it because why not.


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